Research, news and events at the Department of Politics, University of York

Monday, 8 July 2013

Legislative Protest as Democratic Practice

Carole Spary discusses the phenomenon of legislative protest and its significance as
a form of democratic practice. She discusses two high profile examples that have been making the headlines, and draws on insights from a recently published special issue of the journal
Democratization on the topic of ‘Disruptive Democracy: Analysing Legislative Protest’.

The Texas Senate recently witnessed an important and spectacular ten hour filibuster by Democrat Senator Wendy Davis, designed to block a
controversial abortion bill which would restrict abortion rights and access in
Texas. The filibuster, the purpose of which is to speak extensively on a bill
with the deliberate purpose of delaying or preventing a vote, fell just short
of the midnight deadline. However, it was followed by a passionately supportive
public gallery protest which successfully disrupted the final vote on the bill.

In another recent but unconnected incident, a parliamentary debate in
Westminster witnessed a more muted but still noteworthy protest against media
sexism by Caroline Lucas MP. Wearing a t-shirt with the slogan ‘No More
Page Three’ in reference to the on-going
campaign to remove pictures of topless models from selected newspapers,
Lucas stood up and spoke in the debate but was shortly told by the debate chair
that she was in breach of the Westminster dress code. Lucas complied with the
chair’s order to cover up by putting on and buttoning up her jacket. Whilst
doing so, she commented on the irony of being told to comply with the dress
code when the same newspapers targeted by the campaign were available to
purchase in retail outlets on the Westminster estate. She held up a copy of one
such newspaper open at page three but was called to order by the chair.

These two examples suggest how protests by legislators
within legislative contexts are important not just for the immediate impact they
make on legislative debates and outcomes, but for what they signify in terms of
democratic practice. Legislative protests can offer insights into the meaning
and functioning of legislative institutions, actors and their behaviour beyond
aggregate votes or routine deliberation in debates. Analysing the protest
behaviour of legislators and the regulatory role of presiding officers can help
us to better understand the significance of how elected representatives perform
representation and how legislative institutions manage disagreement and
conflict.

For example, the two examples of legislative protest above
illustrate contrasting modes of compliance, yet official rules of procedure
often need to be interpreted by
legislative actors such as presiding officers and legislators. Some modes of legislative
protest such as Sen. Wendy Davis’ filibuster are part of established though
rarely performed modes of legislative performance and comply with official
legislative rules and procedure. Others, such as the one recently enacted by
Caroline Lucas MP, may bend or break official rules in order to communicate a
key message. The Texas filibuster by Sen. Wendy Davis, however, fell short of
the vote deadline because Davis accumulated three violations of the filibustering
procedure which raised as points of order by legislators and upheld by the
chair, despite being contested. This suggests that legislative protest is
contingent and that interpretive work can often have important consequences for
the success or failure of legislative protest acts.

Also, the manner in which rules are interpreted and applied
may also be strongly influenced by informal institutional norms and conventions.
Some forms of disobedience might be tolerated more in some legislative contexts
compared to others for reasons of pragmatism, such as the repeated disruptions
to debate in the Parliament of India. Also, the frequency and intensity of
protest may change over time, for example as a result of changes in the
relative strength of the government and the opposition in the legislature and
the quality of communication between them. This interpretive work means that legislative
protest and regulatory responses will differ across and within legislative
institutions and over time.

Finally, both examples illustrate how performance and its
embodiment are key elements of legislative protest. The filibuster involved
intense and protracted physical labour. Sen. Wendy Davis deliberately wore
running shoes and swayed from side to side while she was on her feet and
talking for ten hours and 45 minutes. During this time she could not take meals
or bathroom breaks or sit down. Assistance from another legislator in adjusting
her back brace was the basis of a point of order raised by Republican senators and
sustained against her (for ‘aiding’ the filibuster). The final vote on the bill
was disrupted in part by the loud volume of the public gallery protestors
including many who were physically
and forcibly removed. In the protest by Caroline Lucas MP, her physical embodiment
as a female MP, her physical wearing of a protest message, as well as her
display of the page three of a newspaper provided visual layers of protest simultaneous
to her speech. While her T-shirt and display of the newspaper was reprimanded
by the presiding officer, he emphasised that he was not curtailing Lucas’
speech. These examples remind us of how
legislative protest in particular and representation more broadly involves
embodied performances.

These ideas about legislative protest and democratic
practice are just some of those explored in a recently published special issue
of the journal Democratization called
‘Disruptive Democracy:
Analysing Legislative Protest’. The special issue includes articles which
discuss legislative protest both theoretically and conceptually such as in
relation to deliberation, representation, performativity, and democratic space,
as well as empirically with case study analysis of national legislatures of the
UK, South Africa, Sweden, and India. The theme of this special issue is linked
to a research programme on ‘Gendered Ceremony and Ritual in Parliament’ which
was funded by the Leverhulme Trust from 2007-2011. For further details about
the programme please visit the GCRP website.